


To All that We Have Lost

by roseandheather



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 23:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6062533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandheather/pseuds/roseandheather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're both a little bit broken. But maybe, somehow, that makes them fit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To All that We Have Lost

“No! You don’t get to make excuses because you’re _scared!”_

“I’m not -” she starts, but he runs right over her.

“Like hell you’re not! You’re _terrified_ of this, Leanne! First it’s our professional relationship, then it hasn’t been long enough since Gina was killed, then it’s because you’re working too much, or you have to help Christa with a dress fitting, or you don’t have the _time…!_ But I look into your eyes and I _know_ the truth. You’re scared shitless, Leanne Rorish, and I can’t figure out why!”

“Fine!” she barks. The cascade of hard, harrowing truth has battered her down, left her exposed and shaking, and she can’t hold the walls any more. “I’m _terrified_ that I’m falling in love with you, and I have _no idea_ how to handle it!”

For the first time in years - hell, maybe the first time in his _life -_ he is properly, honest-to-God stunned. Everything he thought he knew, every assumption he’d ever made about the fireworks brewing between them, every kiss, every touch, every sigh - it all turns over in his mind, changes its shape, shadows shifting and turning until the light is entirely different and he sees what he never had.

She stands there shaking, arms wrapped defensively around her waist, her eyes huge and frightened like a startled doe’s, and he melts.

Just melts, in a way he’s never felt. The need to give pure tenderness, to hold her and shelter her, washes through him, and he realizes with a thrill of fear that he holds Leanne Rorish’s heart in his hands.

That had never been true with Gina. They had loved each other, fiercely, but they had never had the power to break each other.

 _But I could break Leanne,_ he thinks dizzily, and closes his eyes against the rush of feeling. _If I move wrong, if I say the wrong thing, I could break her heart._

And oddly enough, the last thought settles his shoulders and the racing in his mind, bringing with it an odd kind of peace.

“Oh, Leanne,” he whispers at last, and takes a step forward.

Still moving slowly, he reaches out, tugs the tie from her hair so it falls in soft waves around her shoulders. Her eyes, so vulnerable, look up at him, mingled defiance and confusion, and he reaches out, tucks a stray strand behind her ear. His hand moves without conscious thought, sliding up her neck, cupping her cheek, his thumb gently wiping away the traces of tears still glittering there.

“Lea,” he says, and lets the taste of it shimmer through him like champagne at the new year. It’s his name alone for her, one no one else has ever used, and her eyelashes flutter shut as she hears it. 

“Lea,” he says again, his thumb still stroking the softness of her cheek, and then he leans down and touches his lips to hers. 

She whimpers, quiet, in the back of her throat, her hands fluttering uselessly between them until he reaches out with his free hand, captures them both, presses them fiercely to his heart. She gasps, a laugh or a sob or perhaps both, and slides them up, around his neck, clinging to him like he’s the only thing that still keeps her standing. 

“You don’t have to know,” he whispers against her lips, and licks the questioning noise from her mouth. “We’ll figure it out. _Trust me._ Please, Lea. Just trust me.”

She lets out another noise - this one definitely a sob - and hides her face in his shoulder, but she’s pressing herself against him and holding on tight and he thinks, finally, that he might have broken through.

His hand slides from her cheek to her temple, then farther back to tangle in the silky waterfall of her hair, and she whimpers again, clutching him more tightly. He presses her close with the hand on her back, fingers splayed between her shoulder blades, and lets the pressure be his silent promise.

_Just trust me, Lea. Just trust me.  
_

And then he realizes, abruptly, that he forgot to tell her something important.

Something _critical._

“Lea,” he murmurs, and strokes her hair. “I think I’m falling in love with you, too.”

When she lifts her eyes to his, they’re glowing, and her smile has never been more radiant.


End file.
